Radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh dies of cancer
Limbaugh, the talk titan who made right-wing radio financially viable in American media and himself a Republican kingmaker, died Wednesday after he revealed in 2020 that his lung cancer was terminal. He was 70.
His death was confirmed by his wife, Kathryn, at the beginning of Limbaugh’s radio show, from which he’s been absent for almost two weeks.
A longtime cigar smoker, Limbaugh succumbed to cancer after battling drug addiction and loss of hearing earlier in his career (he was deaf by the end but continued the daily broadcast).
A staunch supporter of former President Donald Trump, Limbaugh was among Trump’s most prominent enablers of his failed effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
After a mob of pro-Trump extremists stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, provoking outraged sputtering from RepubliRush
cans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives alike, Limbaugh stood out in dismissing the controversy.
Few would deny that Limbaugh was one of the most influential commercial broadcasters, if not the most influential, in American history, said Michael Harrison, founder and publisher of Talkers trade magazine, which covers talk radio.
Limbaugh’s show was the most listened-to talk radio broadcast in the U.S., bringing a cumulative weekly audience of about 15.5 million listeners at his peak, according to Talkers’ tracking.
“No one beats Rush in the political news talk radio format — he’s No.1,” Harrison said.
Limbaugh’s was a life and career of wild success pockmarked by controversies and health calamities, including years of chronic back pain and unsuccessful surgery, leading to long-term prescription opioid addiction and 30 days in rehab in 2003.
In 2006, he was criminally investigated and arrested for alleged “doctor shopping” to obtain multiple prescriptions in Florida, a charge dropped after a plea agreement and his promise to continue addiction treatment (although Limbaugh maintained his innocence).
In 2001, he announced he had gone deaf over three months for unknown reasons.
He had cochlear implants to restore some of his hearing.
Then lung cancer struck. On Oct. 20, he told listeners his cancer was terminal.
“You measure a happy life against whatever medication it takes. And at
some point, you decide, you know, this medication may be working, but I hate the way I feel every day,” Limbaugh said on the air. “I’m not there yet. But it is part and parcel of this.”
Limbaugh is survived by his fourth wife, Kathryn Rogers, whom he married in 2010.
Three previous marriages ended in divorce.
He did not have children.
Born on Jan. 12, 1951, in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, Rush Hudson Limbaugh III came from a line of conservative Republicans that included lawyers, judges and ambassadors.
His was a family that looked askance at his early yen, while still in grammar school, to become a radio star.
“I said, ‘Pop, I love this. I know I’m great at it. I’m gonna get even better,’ ” Limbaugh told interviewers later.
When he was 9, he got a toy radio as a gift and began “broadcasting” on AM frequencies in his home, entertaining his family playing DJ with his records.
In high school, he worked as a DJ at a local station co-owned by his father.
He lasted only one year at Southeast Missouri State University before leaving to pursue a career in radio.
In between doing his show and advising Republican presidents and candidates, Limbaugh wrote best-selling books (“The Way Things Ought to Be” in 1992, followed in 1993 by “See, I Told You So”), including a series of children’s books.
He supported several charities, including a telethon for leukemia and lymphoma, the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation, and the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, which honors a firefighter who died saving others in the 9/11 terrorist attack on the twin towers in New York.